The impact of Ad quality and position on mobile SERPs

Abstract

In this paper we aim to explore the effects of advertisement (ad) quality and position in search engine result pages (SERPs) on a mobile device. We conducted a lab-based eye-tracking study to investigate search time, behavior, and user satisfaction with ads of good or bad qualities positioned at the top or middle of organic results. Our findings suggest that users pay attention to ads regardless of their quality or position. However, they tend to pay different amounts of attention to organic results and SERPs because of ad quality. We also found that user satisfaction and the chance of clicking on an ad vary according to ad quality and position.